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Sheriff Jeff Richards said Kyle Flack, 27, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in the case.

The child's mother, Kaylie Kathleen Bailey, 21, was found dead earlier this week with two men -- identified as Steven Eugene White, 31, Andrew Adam Stout, 30, both of Ottawa, at a property in rural Ottawa.

Kaylie and her daughter, Lana Bailey, were reported missing last week. Their car was recovered late Tuesday in Emporia, about 50 miles from where the bodies were found.

Investigators said they have not recovered the child's body, but said that they believe she is a homicide victim.

"It's really senseless. The other killings are not understandable in most of our minds. But that one would really not be understood. You think, 'Why would you kill this little girl who can't identify him, can't talk to anybody?'" said Andrew Pettijohn, Lana Bailey's great-grandfather.

Authorities said they would not discuss a possible motive in the case and stressed it was an ongoing investigation.

"We want to protect and maintain the integrity of the investigation because there's still a tremendous amount of work to be done this this particular case," said Richards. "Just because we have one person in custody doesn't mean we're going to stop. If we have other information come in and other leads, we will continue to follow those. I believe the victims deserve that and I believe everyone here is going to demand that."

KBI

He said he didn't think there was any additional danger to the public.

Richards said a team from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will help with the case. About 150 investigators spent much of Thursday afternoon searching the area by foot and horseback in hopes of finding evidence that could lead to Lana.

"We could be dealing with woods, we could be dealing with pastures and streams, and there's a lot of things out there that we're going to have to be dealing with," Richards said.

Thursday evening, one of the horseback search teams stopped a couple of miles northeast of the farm after seeing buzzards circling overhead. Police checked the ground but found nothing.

Cliff Judy/KMBC

They said they would continue the search Friday morning.

"We are going to exhaust and explore every lead that we have, and we have several leads," Richards said.

He won't say why he doesn't expect to find Bailey alive.

"We would not have released that information had we not been certain," he said.

The case, particularly the news about Lana Bailey, has hit hard in Franklin County.

"It was hard when the sheriff came out and said that they are presuming the baby to be dead. That is the last thing I wanted to hear," said Ottawa resident Tina Briggs.

"I see that baby every night on the screen," said Ottawa resident Kathy Sheler. "The tears just roll."